Angela Mazzi has dedicated much of her nearly 20-year career to elevating the application of research in design, specifically in the healthcare design sector. Her peer-reviewed salutogenesis research demonstrates how health outcomes can be impacted by reducing stress and promoting well-being, leading to her becoming a sought-after expert in the design of oncology, behavioral health, and emergency departments as well as clinical workspaces.<\/p>\n
Specifically, Mazzi\u2019s research on milieu, the collection of therapeutic settings in mental health environments that foster social interactions and activity, is reframing the approach to these care environments by supporting a new model of programming to reduce patient aggression, shorten inpatient stays, and increase staff retention.<\/p>\n
In the last year, her ideas have helped guide the planning and design of Cincinnati Children\u2019s Hospital Medical Center<\/a>\u2019s new 160,000-square-foot behavioral health facility, scheduled to open in late 2023. There, she\u2019s worked with the client to embrace a facility design that conveys a sense of empowerment and safety, accommodates parental participation, and provides a variety of spaces to accommodate both introverts and extroverts.<\/p>\n This past February, she drew on her expertise in oncology space planning and design to co-create GBBN\u2019s Oncology Symposium. The virtual, multidisciplinary event brought together experts from healthcare organizations across the country, including TriHealth<\/a>, Cincinnati Children\u2019s Hospital Medical Center, and Bon Secours Mercy Health<\/a>, to discuss market challenges and oncology trends.<\/p>\n Outside the office, her schedule is just as full. In 2021, as president of the American College of Healthcare Architects<\/a> (ACHA), Mazzi formed a multidisciplinary task force to study equity and efficacy in healthcare and relaunched the ACHA Masters Series, panel discussions around trends in healthcare.<\/p>\n As president-elect of AIA Cincinnati this year, she\u2019s leading a group to consider how architecture supports\u00a0 well-being for patients, visitors, and staff. She also regularly shares her work at conferences and in peer-reviewed journals.<\/p>\n As her nomination reads, \u201cFor Angela, architecture is an advocacy profession.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n